Trivia

Cover art

The American NES cover for this game has been ridiculed for having no resemblance to the game at all. Gamespy has placed it as number 1 for the Top Ten Worst Covers list.

Gutsman

One of the bosses in the game that utilizes rocks as a weapon is named Gutsman -- not Rockman -- due to that being the original Japanese name for Mega Man. In Japan, "guts" is a phrase commonly associated with strength and vigor.

Manual

The manual claims that you can crouch by pressing down, but Mega Man can not duck in this or any subsequent game.

Mega Man 1 differences from the rest of the series

The original Megaman game has a huge amount of significant differences between all its sequels, especially around boss battles:

It is the only Megaman game where you score points (since you don't get extra lives when the score increases as in most games, the score is totally useless).

It is the only Megaman game where you have 6 robots to fight instead of 8.

The word "Ready" doesn't blink when you start a stage.

You sometimes enter to the boss room from the top (Bomban stage, Dr Willy stage 2) or from the bottom (Elecman stage). In all other Megaman games, you always enter from the left.

When approaching boss rooms, instead of having one gate that opens and one gate that close, there is one double-gate that opens and it doesn't close after you enter.

You have enemies between the last gate and the boss. This allows for the possibility to lose health before actually beginning the battle, and it increases the challenge.

When entering in boss room, first the music starts and the bosses lifebar show up, then the gate closes.

When the boss is defeated, it doesn't make the same noise as if Megaman is defeated.

After the boss is defeated, you have to take a ball to exit the level.

After that, you don't get a bonus screen or anything. Your bonuses pops up directly on the screen.

This is the only entry in the series that doesn't tell you the names of the weapons you acquire (though subsequent re-releases such as Mega Man: The Wily Wars give the names).

When you revisit a stage, the Robot Master at the end will be back, whereas the games that followed had the room empty when you revisited the stage.

Water does not make Mega Man buoyant here (he doesn't jump any higher underwater than on dry land). Again, this is the only game in the series that has this feature.

Mega Man is invincible for a few moments after he takes damage, but this invincibility does not apply toward spikes, unlike in the later games.

Remakes

This game has been remade five times, that's more than any other game in the Mega Man series.

Yellow Devil

The Yellow Devil (who's in the first Wily stage) was renamed the "Rock Monster" for the original U.S. release of Mega Man (this also applies to Mega Man 3). The reason behind this was Nintendo of America's being squeamish about the use of the word "Devil" in its games. The PS2 and Xbox versions of Mega Man Anniversary Collection (also Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters), however, refers to the Yellow Devil by its original name.